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Mary's Role In The Monotheist Religion

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Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a Hebrew woman, from the lineage of David. This fact was crucial to the understanding of Jesus as the messiah who was going to come according to the Old Testament, from the line of David. Furthermore, fertility was a big theme of the Jewish people because they were all expecting the Messiah. If a woman was not fertile, it meant that she was immediately left out from the possibility of being the mother of the Messiah they were expecting. However, Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah. What is then the role of Mary for the Jews? Within Christianity, Mary has an important role for being the mother of Jesus, and the main differences between different Christian denominations are around the devotion and the virginity …show more content…

We will explore in this paper the role of Mary in the three monotheist religions. Mary, or Miriam, is also respected by Muslims, who pay a great respect for her as the mother of a prophet. Both Jews and Muslims do consider Jesus as a prophet, and Mary is the mother of this prophet. But what exactly is Mary’s role in the three religions? Is she just a person with a passive role, or does she actively play a role in the practice of the three religions? Catholics, for example, claim that Mary plays a major role in their personal salvation. What do the other three religions consider is Mary’s role in their life, if any at …show more content…

Muslims venerate Jesus as a prophet, and as such, they honour his mother as well, even though they do not consider Jesus as God as Christians do. Under this perspective, Mary is a bridge, or a means for dialogue between both religions. Muslims value Mary's piety and submission and they consider she is one of the human beings with higher category (Her, 2). Angie Her (3) quotes a verse of the Quran that says that Mary is chosen by Allah, and purified her tone above all other women. Both Christians and Muslims, in several Middle Eastern countries, venerate together the Virgen Mary in her feast days (Her, 3).
It is clear then that even though they honor Mary as the mother of a prophet, they do not see her as the mother of God. Allah shows Mary as the example of how a Muslim woman should be (Oktar, 12), and those women who follow her example will not only have a strong and stable personality but also, they will find good pleasure in Allah's presence. Muslims see Mary as a chosen woman, the mother of the prophet Jesus, however, she was born in an area occupied by Romans, and she was a Jew. While Jews once preferred Allah, according to Oktar, they no longer followed his commands and lost his

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